In this fully up-to-date volume, important new developments and applications of discrete element modelling are highlighted and brought together for presentation at the First International UDEC/3DEC Symposium. Papers covered the following key areas: * behaviour of masonry structures (walls, bridges, towers, columns) * stability and deformation of tunnels... more...

Latin Fiction provides a chronological study of the Roman novel from the Classical period to the Middle Ages, exploring the development of the novel and the continuity of Latin culture. Essays by eminent and international contributors discuss texts including: * Petronius, Satyrica and Cena Trimalchionis * Apuleius, Metamorphose(The Golden Ass)... more...

Successful businesses and organizations are continually looking for ways to improve service and customer satisfaction in order to achieve long-term customer loyalty. In light of these goals, software developers must ask the question: how does customer orientation influence traditional approaches, methods, and principles of software development? In... more...

The author calls for the reinvestment of dying with the rituals that once gave it spiritual and social meaning, surveying the many ways death has been treated throughout history and demonstrating how the arts might lend a renewed reverence to death. UP. more...

This eagerly awaited second edition of Heinz Heisler's Advanced Vehicle Technology is a comprehensive and thorough description of vehice bodies and components. The second edition has been rigorously updated to provide additional material on subjects such as antilock braking, vehicle aerodynamics, tire tread design advances, electronically controlled... more...

Mathematics is generally considered as the only science where knowledge is uni­ form, universal, and free from contradictions. ?Mathematics is a social product - a 'net of norms', as Wittgenstein writes. In contrast to other institutions - traffic rules, legal systems or table manners -, which are often internally contradictory and are hardly ever... more...

Does economics influence elections? How does such influence work? Under what conditions is it more or less likely to occur? These appear to be simple questions, but answering them is difficult. And they may appear to be trivial questions to those who contend that elections in the western democracies are at best placebos that disguise the Â?realÂ? dynamics... more...

The essays in this collection analyze the successes and failures of the social sciences over the last few decades as well as on their future. The focus of the book is on generic problems, difficulties, and dilemmas in the social sciences that the contributors are uniquely qualified to articulate. Each of them has been intimately involved in the development... more...